Unai Emery contract clause ‘leaked’

Unai Emery signed a three-year deal with Arsenal but the club inserted a clause that allows them to dismiss him after two years should they see fit.

The Spaniard arrived at Arsenal last month and it seems that, barring catastrophe, Arsenal will give Emery at least two years to make his mark on the club.

Matt Hughes, writing in a Times’ Exclusive [£], adds, “The Times has learnt that the club can invoke the clause without paying up the full value of his contract.”

Emery’s contract also reportedly reflects the fact that the club will be paying Arsenal Wenger’s salary for the next 12 months as they honour the two-year contract they got him to sign before forcing him out less than a year later.

(Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

Arsenal are doing all they can to avoid a repeat of last summer when they were completely unprepared for life after Wenger.

The Frenchman was reportedly ready to call it a day after his last FA Cup win, but the club asked him to stay on as they put the mechanisms in place to deal with him actually leaving. Wenger agreed out of loyalty to the club.

Power that was held by the manger for so long has now been split between Ivan Gazidis, Raul Sanllehi, Sven Mislintat and Unai Emery. This means that should Arsenal want to get rid of Emery at any point, that decision won’t be a massive wrench thrown into the works.

Arsenal are also said to be keen to avoid a repeat of what happened at Manchester United when they gave David Moyes a six-year deal to take over from Sir Alex Ferguson. The Scot was sacked before he even got to the end of his first season.

While Arsenal are, ideally, hoping that Emery can stay long-term and build yet another era at the club, they are being realistic and that is a good thing.

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